Escalation
by snitchesgetstitchesbitches
Summary: For Kaiba, it all started with the dog. The dog and a promise. That encounter forced him to face aspects of his lifestyle that he might have preferred to leave in the dark, ignored like all the things that made his skin crawl in disgust and his insides to turn- especially those pertaining to Katsuya Jounouchi. (Kaijou)


**A/N: First things first, I did say I would return with more puppyshipping~~ And here I am! But, I never did mention how fucking weird it would be, now didn't I? I mean, seriously, this fic is strange as balls. It's a tad dark and a good amount of crazy but the good kind of crazy.**

 **Escalation**

In hindsight, looking back at the initial month of that strangely arid autumn of dry air and coffee brown leaves and blood tinted sunsets, the first trigger, the first domino piece to fall and start the inevitable descent of the rest in a spiraling rush of fatality and insanity, was probably the mangy dog in the park.

Seto's temples had been throbbing with a vengeance for the better part of the past half hour, ever since he had set foot outside the disgrace of a building people dared to call school. He refused to take any medication; he was not dependant on external solutions to his issues, especially if he could easily overcome them on his own.

Seto Kaiba was not weak to headaches.

The same way he was not weak to the image that greeted him before gym class of one Katsuya Jounouchi almost suffocating on the way out of his shirt and jacket and into his sport's uniform. Yugi Muto and his other two idiot friends had materialized at his side immediately, trying to help the wailing teen, and when the wild mess of blonde hair and exaggerated articulations emerged back to the land of non-ridiculous entities, his angular face was splattered in blotches of blush all the way around from his tanned cheeks to the bridge of his nose, his lips were wet with spit as he gasped for air and his eyes, darkened out of sudden fright, were foggy and watery. Seto had frozen at the entrance, a little dizzy, a little out of sorts, more than unacceptably out of character, and his nails became intimately acquainted with the center of his palms before he left /escaped/ the locker room in a blaze of angry confusion.

Even now he still heard the deafening sound of the door slamming behind him /the Mutt's muffled gasps, choking on cheap polyester/, still felt his hands itching sonorously in the silence of the car, the raw marks in them still demanding, oozing blood, questioning him.

And then-as he remembered and _seethed_ \- in front, through the windshield: a flash of dark ochre. The car screeched as it veered sideways, causing Seto to claw tightly at the expensive leather of his seat to prevent one side of his face from being plastered to the windows. As soon as the vehicle stopped, he found himself climbing out, ignoring completely the panicked calls of the nameless driver. A vein under his jaw pulsed insistently.

His vision swam dark and his headache increased exponentially the moment he saw it was a fucking dog; a disgustingly pathetic one at that, standing on narrow, twiglike legs in the middle of the street as if he owned it. It was a very dirty, very ugly, and very obviously starved golden retriever, closer to the appearance of a walking skeleton than a dog itself. The animal's notorious mass of fur that should have been one shade darker than that of wheat was instead of a disagreeable brownish coloration on most of its body; it was black on his long nailed paws and wagging tail, covered in a combination of mud, dirt, sewer waters and other foul smelling substances that Seto did not want to consider. His ribs were notorious under all that untrimmed hair, sticking in a painful manner to the lithe layer of skin, veiny and stretched, on his torso.

The stupid thing was lucky to even be standing. He could probably kick the animal and end up puncturing its lungs. If he treated it particularly rough, he could end up killing it. Probably. Yet the living corpse merely stood there with its tongue swinging out of its snout happily, stable enough to hold his own weight, staring at Seto with pleading eyes the same color of the coffee he took in the mornings /too dark, wrong tone/. Seto's palms began sweating suddenly, and he wiped them on the thighs of his trousers. He felt like he was in the locker room again and his eyes strayed briefly to the empty park at their left, unconsciously scanning for witnesses passerby's. Seeing not one soul strolling neither in the park nor in the immediate surroundings, he relaxed a little. His eyes returned to obscure brown just as the dog started moving towards him. Slowly. Shyly.

Stupidly, too. Apparently, the mangy mutt didn't possess one ounce of self preservation or awareness, didn't sense that the young man he was currently trying to approach was boiling in the spot with too many volatile emotions. That he was angry beyond belief.

Pulse spiking, Seto Kaiba was compelled to kneel down on the asphalt-his expensive, perfectly tailored pants remained ignored for the moment-when the dog finally reached him. The golden retriever sat on its back legs, peering at him-those big, innocent eyes staring so fearlessly, so trustingly at him, despite Seto's own gaze turning icier by the second… He remembered the several different ways in which he could kill this animal without meaning to.

His slightly shaking hands buried in the dog's filthy fur then, petting, rubbing, scratching at scabbed skin, and when they came away stinging and sticky back to his sides, he wasn't surprised to see the trail of red left in their wake among the filthiness and grime. His palms hadn't stopped bleeding after all.

* * *

The next day, Katsuya sat beside him during lunch period. Their hips bumped accidentally as the blonde tried to find a way to fit himself in the overcrowded table without throwing the contents of his lunch tray over the rest of the occupants, and Seto could have sworn the brief point of contact between them stung white. The fingers holding the coffee mug clenched and loosened, one tear of sweat fell from his hairline. Unbidden, it traveled torturously down his chilled cheek to his jaw line.

He didn't notice Katsuya noticing him, following the barely visible path of sweat, but he did see him turning deliciously red at the ears-the color expanding tenderly beneath the material of his collar-as his flighty honeyed gaze zeroed in on his plate of junk food.

"Jounouchi," he greeted huskily, wincing on the inside at how rough he sounded. Swallowing a mouthful of hot liquid, he willed his voice to smoothen.

In his mind the boy was always Katsuya. In the real plane of insufferable human interactions, facades, and hypocritical pleasantries, he was always Jounouchi. Or **Mutt** , or dog, or deadbeat.

The insults burned at the seam of his tongue, where they remained waiting anxiously. Almost a lifetime had passed since the last time he used them out of pure, unadultered hatred, /what is hatred but another form of/ since he had wanted to beat on the boy at his side so hard with his words /so he wouldn't have to use his fists, feel the broken skin between/, leave him broken and panting, defeated enough to make him unable to ever pick up a card deck again for the rest of his miserable life /but how nice he looked every single time he was twisting on the floor, growling and/

"Kaiba," the other answered too quietly to be heard on top of the screaming contest taking place on the other side of the table.

Unnatural behavior for someone like him, this odd restraint. He was usually the first to be on the disapproving end of speeches, glares and yells of anyone who could easily do without his loud mannerisms. Seto never knew how to respond when he was not confronted by Katsuya's rambunctious attitude and flailing limbs, only knew how to swallow past the knot tied tight on his throat and silently stop rationalizing whatever it was that was sitting heavy in the air they shared.

Sometimes, he thought, life had been easier when the only thing he had to deal with was Katsuya's predictable anger: the storms lashing out in his ridiculous wide eyes, and the scarlet shade to his face caused exclusively by the sweet combination of shame and wrath, the rapid fire spiel of insults whose only unfortunate target was Seto, and that mouth that never stopped rambling about nonsense /he never appeared to take notice, but his mouth, due to lack of hydration and too much speaking, he imagined, was always chapped; every time he saw him peels of bitten flesh were hanging off his mouth, that smiling mouth that turned sour whenever he was near, and when he invaded Seto's space to scream into his face, he was able to smell the blood in his breath, the blood on his dry lips./

He looked down and saw that the blonde's left hand was resting on top of the table too, next to his. Long fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on the white surface. Katsuya's hand was, ironically, more delicate than his own, smaller in a way /he could engulf it in one of his/, but not gentler. Filled with calluses, the product of constantly solving situations with his hands; reddened, raw looking knuckles from old days of street fighting that looked close to piercing the skin which encased them when they flexed; a mild, miss-it-if-you-blink tremor on the middle finger from a fracture, and, on the underside of a thin wrist, the rosy, angry silhouette of a cigarette burn could be found.

At first glance, Katsuya's hand was the opposite of Seto's own deceptively soft and pristine one. But he could tell from the recent tightening of the blonde's jaw on any occasion someone made fun of the rich boy who 'never got his hands dirty out of fear of ruining his nails', that he was aware of the tiny silver scars-spider like blemishes- running across the back of his hand, on the joints, at the sides of his palms. That he knew perfectly well the reason why, at times, Seto showed to class with blisters on his trigger finger and thumb.

Katsuya's digits were dirt streaked. Briefly, he was reminded of the dog. He had the impulse to grab a napkin and wipe them of all that dirt and muck /lick them clean./

/Perilously close to touching, eight centimeters apart were both a blessing and a curse./

"So," the tanned hand curled in a fist. He understood now that it was a sign of nervousness and not of challenge. "Are… Are you alright? Do you feel better?"

His gaze met Katsuya', drinking in the windblown hair, the light sun kissed freckles scattered across cheekbones and beneath purplish swollen eye bags. He raised one eyebrow quizzically; the blond coughed, cleared his throat and when he spoke his voice was of a different raspier quality. "Yesterday, I mean. Right before gym? You walked out like a bat out of hell, man. Without saying a thing. We had to tell the teach' it was work stuff but… is everything okay? Did- did something happen?"

The thinly veiled concern. His honesty. The stutter.

Seto set the coffee mug down, hissing through gritted teeth, "If I remember correctly, I wasn't the one stuck in a battle to death with my own bloody clothes. _That_ would have been a pathetic way to go, but perfectly fitting for you, now that I think about it. Don't you agree, Jounouchi?"

The color returned to Katsuya's face faster than what it took to say the word 'loser'.

"What-what! Why do you-You…You… You son of a- Wait." A sight to behold it was indeed, to see the anger distorting Katsuya's gentle features reverse to a more disgruntled though still annoyed state. "What the hell, dude. That was totally uncalled for! You can't deflect the conversation by acting like a douchebag. That trick got old a long time ago, rich boy."

He sighed, feeling the headache from yesterday slowly returning. "Mutt, it was nothing. I'm perfectly fine." Katsuya didn't seem convinced. "You should be worrying about yourself. Eat something, you look like fresh road kill." He said, and proceeded to point to the blonde's untouched food.

For a brief moment he thought Katsuya would continue to push the issue. Instead, he pursed his lips, shook his head. Snorted at him.

"Stubborn bastard. Fine, whatever. See if I care." The flushed appearance had not gone away during their loaded exchange. He tried to come off as nonchalant, however his fist didn't relax and there was a slight crease in between his eyebrows, a hidden hurt in his dismissal of Seto.

He hated that Katsuya Jounouchi could feel hurt over him out of all the people the boy knew and was actually friends with. /He also craved it./

The blond head turned away from him, staring back at the ketchup stains on his corner of the table. Picking with lackluster intent on his greasy fries that left equally greasy spots on his dirty fingers, Katsuya tuned him out. Otogi and Honda kept on performing their usual childish shenanigans in their usual noisy manner while Yugi tried to ineffectually appease the two, unaware of the tight clutch he had on the Egyptian relic that hung off his thin neck. The only one who had started paying attention to them-most likely due to getting fed up with the other bunch of her dweeb friends- was Mazaki, whom Seto chose to ignore despite her keen knowing gaze sweeping from Katsuya's hunched form to his tense and poised posture. The questions in her eyes singed him, but in the end it really was none of her business-the fragile creature simmering and sizzling between shattered hands and heated, electrified bodies-, and she proved to know this by maintaining her silence.

Lunch time ended with no further complications and before he could process the fact that Katsuya's body rubbed against his again when the former delinquent stood up, they were already tracing their steps back to the classroom.

Just as he thought the day might, for once, finish without him wanting to shove a bullet somewhere in his chest, the bane of his existence decided to torment him by being his annoying self once again and chose last period to throw something in Seto's general direction, taking advantage of the teacher's turned back as she scrambled to correct a mistake Seto had pointed out simply to put an end to her inexperienced blabber for a few minutes. A couple of girls turned their necks in similar fashion to that of someone possessed by a demon to glare holes into the blond's air filled head. He paid them no mind, smirking at Seto as he signaled with his pupils at the fallen object, clearly telling him to pick it up, whatever it may be.

He was one hundred percent sure the incompetent teacher wouldn't say a word if Seto, say, suddenly stood up, disrupting the class, to strangle the living daylights out of one moronic mutt. /Watching that pretty face turn colors./ Still, wondering where had his self control and sanity gone to (lost somewhere in either Duelist Kingdom or Battle City, surely), he scoffed at Katsuya, a semi sneer-semi grimace pulling at his lips, and bent down to grab the forsaken thing.

Said object was a chocolate bar-specifically the cheap brand sold at the canteen, recognizable by its tacky red wrapping and just as tacky name written in a font worryingly alike to Comic Sans: _'ChocoGO'_. It was so poor in taste, students often preferred to risk paying higher prices anywhere else than buy the awful school sponsored treat. Were the circumstances different, Seto would have literally spat in the face of such an offensive offering. Given his current circumstances however, which consisted of eyefuls of a washed out uniform, frayed hems and cuffs, loosened threads, ratty shoes, a joyful voice announcing to the world his need for chocolate, a used cartoon themed wallet completely devoid of money, a tray full of leftovers from his friends' lunches plus the additional four weeks old fries, and an eager stare lacking any sign of malice or self consciousness about the quality of the gift he was presenting to Seto Kaiba, no less; he honestly couldn't…/Katsuya had never given him anything before/… It would be so easy to respond with something scathing and bitter but…/He had seen the chocolate bar in Katsuya's pocket earlier, had seen the blond eying it like it was the key to salvation, had seen him spend what little he had…/

/Katsuya had **never** given him anything of his own volition before./

Every single muscle in his face was rendered immobile, anger piercing through his system, fingers white knuckling the chocolate bar /to crush it or to keep it, what was it going to be./

If he could have seen his expression right then he would have been met with a wall of glacial emptiness, only the scalding blue eyes betraying the turmoil inside.

And Katsuya… Katsuya- who was still the same boy who had tried to befriend him so long ago in that game shop just to be met with derision and mockery, the same boy Seto had always claimed to be less than nothing and whose mere importance relied solely on his relationship with Yugi Mutou, that boy who had challenged him, unafraid, in Duelist Kingdom, pushing him out of his comfort zone and forcing him to duel someone he had deemed pitifully inferior and unworthy- was unknowingly bouncing in his seat from excitement, cheeks trembling to contain the emergence of the wide dopey grin he was commonly known for, the strange aura of innocence that always surrounded him even throughout his troublemaker days giving him a glow of purity as his eyes /dark seas of untamable nature/ crinkled, and Seto /felt/

Seto /wanted/

/No. He didn't want this. He didn't want words sizzling to be spoken, his thoughts to consist of poetics and musings of useless facts which amounted to nothing. Nothing at all./

Drowning- this, everything about this idiotic situation he was discovering too soon to be unavoidable, felt pretty much like walking into open sea with rocks bound around his ankles, braving deeper within the roaring waves until the last thing left to do was to inhale streams of water and allow the weight of stones to pull him down.

So Seto did not deign the gesture with a response. He pocketed the sweet, his eyes not departing from the blond's eager ones. The flavor of salt clogged his senses, and all he could do was glare at the golden teen with the venomous hatred he hid inside, locked behind a million doors to keep it calm, harmless, guarded away from the one whom would suffer the most from that scalding poison being unleashed.

* * *

The dog wasn't standing like an idiot in the middle of the street that afternoon. It was running in circles inside the park this time, chasing its tail.

He walked towards it, the slap his expensive leather boots made when they encountered asphalt was a lonely cry in the wind. Just like yesterday, there were no souls polluting the streets anywhere near. There was no nosy driver present either. He had decided earlier in the morning (the sunlight had greeted him by illuminating his covered-in-nail-marks forearms and thighs, his choked body swimming in sweat, /in hunger/ and he'd understood no one ought to see him do _this_ ) to drive himself to school.

He was alone.

As if sensing his presence, the animal ceased its erratic movements and craned its neck in his direction. Had Seto been the type of person to act over enthusiastic in any matter related to animals, he would have claimed the dog _beamed_ at the sight of him: armored in his white trench coat, both feet set firmly before the park's gates. His palms were humid as he took out the chocolate bar out of his pocket, tearing the red wrapping apart with sure fingers, and a rare smile escaped from its prison when he waved the treat in the air, prompting the scruffy golden retriever to run to him with an excited howl.

He bent down to feed the starving creature. Brown orbs glittered, childish adoration pouring out of them like spilled ink, drawing shadows on the dog's gaunt skull. And Seto accepted his own elation, - /the lookalike licking and eating out of his generous hand, hunger burning in the pit of his navel/\- because he just learnt he was made of nothing but undiluted self-restraint.

He touched, he fed, he smiled, he trailed the dog's scars, careful pads rubbing the puckered skin, petting. /Most importantly, he didn't harm./ He was good. Everything was right with the world ( in _his_ world ).

Hours flew right past him. By the time the sun painted the city in shades of orange and red wine, he had already left for his home, leaving behind the proof of his restraint to gaze longingly at the back of the retreating car.

* * *

Mokuba was waiting for him when he arrived, sitting on the couch near the kitchen with his sneakers kicked off, his socked little feet swinging back and forth. Seto was glad for the kid's easily excitable nature- his little brother was too busy fawning over him and retelling the events of the day to notice the dog fur clinging to his trousers.

He didn't notice for a long while.

Three weeks would pass before he sensed Mokuba's teal gaze scanning-in a manner only a Kaiba could do, subtle and calculating-the smudges of filth on the tips of his fingers, the blood beneath otherwise perfect nails, the crusted half moons incriminating his palms, and he immediately knew to expect a confrontation. Part of him was a little disappointed it had taken him this long to pick up on it.

"Nii-sama," Mokuba started, his big eyes looking humid as he stared up at him. "Where do you go to every afternoon, after you're done with school? Before coming home?"

Seto shrugged. "Nowhere important. Don't worry, I'm not doing anything… wrong."

"You don't spend as much time as you used to at work."

"Aren't you glad that I can now see you more often?"

Mokuba nodded without hesitation, but there was tension to the action. He was like the dolls hidden back in their old room, with those glassy, all seeing eyes. "Do… do you remember when we were little? When we lived in the orphanage?"

"Of course."

How could he ever forget the days of rot, skinned knees, and foul smelling children who thought they were the kings of their isolated kingdom of abandonment and sickness?

"I remember too. We had practically nothing, you know. Just the clothes we had on the first day we walked through those gates and two beds and a room we shared with I don't know how many other children. But still, when we did have something of ours, we treasured them like nothing else in the world. Some people might call that possessiveness, though."

Seto leaned against the wall. The coolness of it was a refreshing touch to the sweaty line of his spine, and he couldn't look away from the imaginary shapes he found on the linoleum floor, dancing by his cold feet.

Where was Mokuba going with this monologue of his?

"I remember…you have always been a bit funny about things you considered yours. Especially if you really liked them. There was a box in our room where you kept the ashes of your favorite comic, if I'm not mistaken; the one you burned in the yard for some reason. You never explained that to me. Why you did _that_." His brother smiled at him, giving too much away.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest and thought of /the fourth Blue Eyes White Dragon card in his hand, the hot sensation running through him while he ripped it in two and saw the palpable grief in the old man's expression./

'A bit funny', huh.

"I just felt like it, Mokuba. What is the point of lingering on the past?"

The kid continued, as if no words had come out of his mouth. "And there was also that time when we actually had a pet bunny. A couple of girls from the B Wing found it near the entrance and weirdly enough, they were allowed to keep it. Everyone loved that bunny. Do you remember the bunny, nii-sama?"

A lump formed inside the walls of his throat, momentaneously, but long enough that he felt his vision going dark at the corners, because he was choking on dry air.

The bunny had been a cute and small animal the color of vanilla ice cream, with a twitching pink nose, and an adorable flighty disposition, and when Seto touched its soft fur, his fingers turned out smelling like earth and grass. He had liked that bunny. Really liked it. And then, on a regular day, his hand holding his brother's tight and a group of children behind them, they had discovered the mangled corpse of the bunny, floating, devoid of life, on a pond in the orphanage's backyard. He remembered the lackluster reddish little coins for eyes the bunny had. He remembered the open chest cavity, the galore of compact organs spilling across the dirty red water, and how the bunny didn't smell sweet anymore, only smelled like the inside of a butcher's shop. He remembered the vomiting boys and girls, and trapping Mokuba against his chest so he wouldn't have to see the stomach turning spectacle of dissected ears and stained white hairs.

He remembered, more than anything, the blood crusts beneath his fingernails.

"Unfortunately, I do. What a useless thing to remember." Seto said, dismissive and monotone.

"Hehe, I knew you'd say something like that, nii-sama. But what a shame really, what was done to that poor thing."

"Indeed, a real misfortune."

"We never did find out who did it." The smile was gone from the boy's moon shaped face. But a sad kind of recognition stayed in its place. Seto nodded somberly, heart beating steadily next to his lungs.

"Just tell me something. Do you like dogs, nii-sama?" Doll eyes focused on the fabric of his trousers, tracing the phantom trails of dog hair.

"No, I don't."

* * *

One Friday morning surprised him with the most unexpected sighting of the century. The moment he set foot inside the classroom he was slapped in the face with a clear view of Katsuya sitting on top of the teacher's desk, one leg of his baggy school pants rolled above to the knee-revealing miles and miles of healthy tanned skin sprinkled with fine, almost invisible yellow hairs-, his head bent down as he seemed to look over something on his exposed limb, allowing blond tresses to fall down messily and effectively blocking from view whatever he was looking at so intensely.

He felt an intense burst of bewilderment suffocate him, frozen at the entrance, breathing accelerated, rapid pulse, because Katsuya was never early to school, much less earlier than him, and the thought of encountering him this way had never crossed his mind in any shape or form. Seto Kaiba was not prepared for this. Unpredictability was something that had no place in his perfectly structured routine. Despite that, he remained unmoving by the door /Katsuya hadn't seen him yet. It'd be easy to enter silently, his footsteps muted by fantasizing and daydreams and experience, like in his dreams, like in his nightmares, walk up to him, catch him unaware,/

/Alone. They were alone./

Purposefully, he slammed the door as hard as he could. His wrist trembled from the forceful action.

"What on Earth, Kaiba? You scared the shit out of me!"

That voice. The charm of it, its simplicity, its coarseness. Accompanied by that face, by those eyes that asked for worship, by that smile in need of relish. Katsuya lifted his head in his direction, eyes stretched in alarm, paled cheeks gaining color, exposing to Seto's weakened stare the full picture of what the boy had been looking at before his arrival and interruption.

His very soul took a last, shaking breath when he saw the bleeding cut above the blond's knee, and in his very soul he felt a dull ache at seeing the slippery burgundy color in juxtaposition to the attractive toasted skin.

His briefcase fell to the floor, his hand involuntarily going completely lax, and he was walking, he was walking towards the injured boy, the dog, the mediocre deadbeat, the ghost that tormented him in dreams with heat and rotating hips and wondering hands.

"What did you do to yourself now, bonkotsu?" He said, his voice shamelessly dark, deep, the kind he'd have after waking in the early mornings, violence beating like a second heart in every part of him, and Katsuya sighed softly, gasping exhale, with half-lidded lashes and heaving breast.

"Why the fuck would you think I did this to myself, genius?" Sarcasm did not serve to tone down the raspy edge to his own voice, mildly electrified, mildly demanding.

There was a foreign element at work here, as Seto stood closer than he should have, and as Katsuya did not recoil immediately from his approaching classmate, but spread his legs even wider on top of the desk, unknowingly inviting Seto to continue doing what he shouldn't have. He knelt to the ground, slowly, one hand braced on the desk right beside the other's closed fist. There were a million scenarios developing in his mind's eye, and none of them involved this twisted reality in which Katsuya Jounouchi breathed through parted, flushed lips, watching him, Seto Kaiba, positioning himself in the empty space between his arched legs. It was almost obscene, he conceded for an instant of madness, that neither of the two had acted the way they should have, that they had not sprung in insults and name calling or anger, that they had chosen to delve closer to the flames instead of running from them as fast as their deceiving bodies were able to. It was decidedly obscene that Katsuya, in all his disheveled, effortless glory, had allowed him this closeness, this intimacy, without one mutter of protest.

This was wrong. The entire situation was wrong. The pyre in his chest, the mere fact of sharing a space with this other boy- not having it filled with rebuttals and refusals- was entirely wrong.

/Stop me. Don't let me do this./

"May I?" He signaled with his pupils to the pouring wound, right thigh clenching uncontrollably.

Had the world been a perfect, idyllic, less fucked up version of itself, this would have been the part where the third rate duelist decked him in the face, bringing him back to his senses. This would have been the part where disgust distorted those features he couldn't admit to have admired so many times before, where Katsuya questioned him sarcastically about his sudden realized medical skills. This would have been the part where he, armed with newfound strength, stood up and left the stupid dog to his own discretions.

But the world he knew and grew up in was not perfect, was not idyllic, was the kind of fucked up that permitted interactions such as this to unfold.

Thus, Katsuya only whispered, "Yeah, sure. I don't mind.", as if he was granting him a well guarded secret, as an alternative to the screams he should have been delivering.

With care he was never taught to have (much less show), he placed nervous digits on the spot where the angry line began. At the same time, his free hand went to settle where the limb bent, behind his knee. The skin was hot, his pads and palm adhered to it thanks to the layer of sweat covering it. The world revolved around the axis that was the contact with bare, weathered skin, and the older Kaiba knew many things within him caved under the pressure of the new sensation. He felt ethereal, compact, lighter than his feelings- more transcendent than the fragile prison of matter that contained him.

But of course, his jailer with his simple inaction and allowance, kept him bonded to mundane dwellings.

"Who did this to you then, if not yourself?" he asked too softly, too gently for the familiar sparks of black poison igniting in his bloodstream, followed by the equally familiar hatred he had known like the back of his hand once upon a time /transparent canvas, thick blue veins, thin and slightly crooked fingers, and all that was needed was a single shove and a big enough window, the explosive sound of a fallen weight meeting concrete./

He had seen it, sometimes. The truth. Tucked in the hushed murmurs of conversation, or in the façade of a grinning, happy visage, or even in the dangerous aura Katsuya emitted on occasion. Not every scar that marred his back, arms, legs and chest was a gift from the streets. And Seto knew this so well, knew it like the back of his hand and the markings on it.

Hooded brown eyes narrowed further, accentuating the shadows around them. "None of your business, asshole."

He didn't exactly agree with the 'asshole' part of that statement, and surely in any other circumstance he would have been /licking the blood away from raw gums /forcing the insolent punk to swallow his idiocy back. But he understood, and because of that tacit knowledge, he chose not to interfere, not matter how vicious he felt, thinking of the man who gave him the injury. /What was this need to cut through flesh yourself/

"Some affairs must be solved by your own hand. Otherwise, it would be meaningless."

/Can you see me? Do I really see you? Projections and illusions go often hand in hand./

Their eyes met, two matches lighting at the same time. Within the mirror of brown orbs Seto saw his reflection, his exalted characteristics, the deepest instinct barely veiled behind stoic composition, he saw the mirage of Seto Kaiba that Katsuya confronted every day. /Reflective, his image spit out back at him. /The other teen smiled a little, amused by something unknown to Seto, and unclenched a fist to play with a loose lock of hair that hung limply next to his heated ear. His reaction was to grab the wrist of that bruised hand and move it aside, not too harshly but not too carefully either, while a shivering tingle spread throughout his body. The sensation was white and stinging, as it tended to be, and he inhaled and exhaled profoundly, lacking oxygen in his lungs, knees sinking more firmly to classroom floor. Katsuya stared and stared and added no more openings for conversation, did not question him for the reason as to why he rejected the gesture.

Disoriented, he lowered his head and pretended to the best of his capabilities to inspect the injury as if he actually had the slightest clue about what to do, other than the bitter reminder of similar experiences.

He touched the area near the open gash, prodding and massaging a bit, taking note of the reddened borders and the irritated flesh. The muscles beneath his palm tensed and untensed, shook and unshook, as though unable to decide whether they were averse to his touch or welcomed it.

The minutes were falling, drop by drop of seconds, yet their static figures refused to break their bubble of inertia.

His mutt was dead silent, with Seto's scarred fingers leaving dots of perspiration on his knee, so close to the hungry looking wound. It looked hungry to him because the more he examined it, the more alluring the gash seemed; inviting, calling for him to insert something inside it, to pull the folds of skin away to reveal the pretty shade of pink under. Maybe a finger, or maybe, perhaps, a tongue. His mouth watered, imagining his face close enough to breathe in the musky scent of Katsuya's legs after running the entire way from his neighborhood to the school, his lips swallowing the foaming cut whole and sucking relentlessly at the bitter taste of his blood, a tongue penetrating it invasively while Katsuya made the sweetest sounds of pain above him.

At that point, resistance became futile, his resolve fused out of existence, and the delicate barrier keeping rationality and lunacy apart shattered just as easily as a window pane.

Maybe on accident (maybe it was just meant to happen from the instant he stepped into the room), compelled, he pinched the borders of the wound together, forcing the inflamed ends to meet.

A moment of deathly quiet and insecurity descended over their trembling forms. Then, the moment imploded.

His heart jumped and there was a choked moan, a needy whine, a hand of bitten nails entangling in his hair and pushing his head forwards, so that his lips now hovered over sun kissed skin and the knife wound, and he was reeling because this he did not expect, and of all the things the blond should have been doing, edging his harasser on was definitely not one of them. Yet he groaned, begged like a starving dog with that expressive face of his and looked at Seto like he wanted to kill him, like he wanted to choke him with his legs, like he wanted to make him choke on the liquid sliding out of the cut above his knee and on the cut itself.

It wasn't his fault, he tried to reason, it wasn't his fault that he was leaning closer, it wasn't his fault that his impulses were at times greater than his will, it wasn't his fault that he wanted bad things and Katsuya did not move a finger to stop him, it wasn't his fault when a tongue peeked out from flushed lips and trailed the salty expansion of broken skin, when the tongue dipped in blood and enjoyed the flavor.

The fingers previously biting into his scalp were petting him, caressing his tresses like they had never thrown a punch or closed around someone's throat, and Katsuya's own throat was working on air (adam's apple bobbing up and down desperately), he seemed dry, he was a thirsty child, he was possessed by the demeanor of a dying man who had been deprived of a last meal.

Seto's mouth sucked at the wound and slurped, causing the deadbeat to howl, and he closed his eyes, sprawling his upper body over the desk wantonly-his jacket and shirt rode up at this, uncovering a bit of tanned navel and a path of blond hairs leading to the hem of his pants-, hooking his covered leg around Seto's right shoulder, heel digging into his shoulder blade insistently. He was making out with the wound, kissing it from beginning to end, slobbering everywhere on it, coating it in a shiny layer of saliva that mingled with the red of Katsuya's blood, and he should have felt shame and embarrassment that he, Seto Kaiba, had been reduced to a mess of wild hair and wild eyes and a mouth full of ripped, bloody, disgusting flesh that he was worshipping with abandon, yet he honestly wasn't able to regret anything when Katsuya was sobbing and biting his knuckles to muffle the sweet, sweet cries of twisted euphoria coming out of his lips.

The inside of his mouth tasted like the fantasies he buried at the bottom of his pillows, and tasted of sweat and of teenage boy and of that particular, unique tang that could only belong to the boy breaking apart on top of the teacher's desk. He licked and licked, hummed when he permitted teeth to roughen the injury even more, he did all this just to aid the splashes of rosy, delicious blush on his classmate's cheeks and neck, to produce those precious, throaty sounds, to say those seductively filthy sentences that increased the throbbing nestled between his legs.

Past the flimsy material of school pants, the outline of Katsuya's hard cock was visible, twitching against the underside of his right thigh, flush with a growing need for attention and already leaking so much precum his groin area was beginning to look wet. Seto, on his knees, yearned to put his mouth over those dark spots as well. His own arousal pulsed hungrily inside his trousers, and that was what did it, that was the required sign, the key ingredient needed for the both the dream and the nightmare to end. The perfect moment for Seto to start remembering.

* * *

 _"Hmmm… yes, just like that!"_

 _"Ahhhh-ahhh. Kaiba. Kaiba. Bite me!"_

 _"You're so bad to me, so mean, so roughAhhhh!. YES!"_

 _"Thisissowrongpleasedontstopdontstoporillkillyou"_

 _"touchmeyes, put that tongue inside harderHARDERplease"_

 _/Debauched/_ _. Pretty, pretty boy with /pretty, pretty breakable skin/. Should I adore you? Should I /harm/ you? No. /Yes/. It's the same meaning, linked by two different terms._

 _Nevertheless, no. I shouldn't. It's forbidden. Self-control. Refrain. Stop. Now there is nothing, no more contact nor /the thick ambrosia on the tip of my tongue/. And I'm up, looking down on pretty prey that looks like he is on the verge of tears, /on the verge of release/, on the verge of discovery. /The tent in his pants stands proud and soaked and I must rub off on him, feel him beneath, vulnerable and open just for me./ _

_But I mustn't. He'll cry. He will get hurt._

 _"….Wai-What? Kaiba?"_

 _"I- You ought to go to the nurse's office. It-it could get infected."_

He ran. There was nothing he could do asides from running. The hallways morphed in front him, twisting and turning until they were dark vines lacing and knitting together in a never-ending maze of hysteria. His stability was a rubber band that attempted to snap, along with the acidic remains of breakfast clawing their way out of his esophagus. The worse was being aware, painfully so, that his excitement, his burning passion, had not diminished at all. The flame, he had left it behind, but that didn't mean it would ever cease burning.

He felt like a poorly made stuffed animal: on the brink of spilling each and every single one of his contents everywhere they could reach.

He lingered on that image for a second. His intestines coiled around themselves on the ground, his ribs hanging by the ceiling, his heart crushed in the grasp of a fist, his brain a burgundy splatter on the ground. His contents, his innermost segments exposed for the whole world to see.

Running. He continued running until the world stood still and the school's entrance loomed near.

He entered the closest bathroom and locked himself inside. In the mirrors lined up on top of the sinks, in that reflective glass, he got drunk on the sight of the aberrant mask he knew to be stuck over his normal face. The half-crazed, squinting eyes, pupils blown inside irises, the running rose, irked cheekbones splashed in colors, his hemorrhaging cheeks. Most notably, most importantly, the horrid make up of clogged blood adorning the stern line of his mouth and the edges of his teeth. Blood beneath his nostrils, blood at the corners of his lips, blood clung to every crack and line and under his very skin. In the mirror, the shadow of him smiled grimly; a smile of crinkled paper, torn at some areas, because he had made a promise, and now that promise crumbled in the face of his shortcomings, his weaknesses, and the short-lived sin his mouth was painted in.

* * *

Long ago, he had seen a battered, gangly kid, standing on his own two feet, defiant of the society that tried so hard to limit him, resentful of the circumstances he was born in, and unsatisfied with his position in life. He had seen him struggle, had seen him in the throes of suffering, had seen him defeated and had ultimately seen him persevere in spite of the extreme adversities he faced and the people who tried their best to beat him down. He had seen his fiery essence shooting out of his frame in waves, had seen him mad beyond belief, had seen him frustrated, had seen him lash out in violence, had seen him protect and save and rebel.

The pattern to his bruises, the damage in him and the damage that he himself was, the innate compulsion to defy his nature, the broken pieces of his self he strived to repair with strings, ropes andd chains (with anything capable of keeping him tied down to earth). He was a mirror child, the opposing side on Seto's coin. He had _seen_ him, this irreverent kid, and as recognition awakened a conflict of emotions inside him, he had made a promise:

 _This one I will not ruin._

Seto dreamt of that promise, as he, dead eyed, observed a dying wish from the mouth of a lonely alleyway; heavy pipe in one hand, cooking knife in the other.

Pathetic crying. Humid noises. That was the music that played in the alleyway that night.

The animal yelped, its desecrated body dragging across the pavement like a deformed, oversized slug. One ocular globe hung out of the socket by a thin strand of tissue, and the socket looked like a gory crater from which blood flowed out of in a steady pace. Its dirty fur was bathed with a tar like substance that appeared to glow an eerie shade of black in the moonlight. The dog's back legs were broken, bent beyond repair, and hints of bone peeked through the shattered mess. The tar like water oozed from the paws too, since the claws had been removed and they rested conspicuously close to a pair of expensive shoes standing by the mouth of the alley. Still, the poor thing fought to escape from his tormentor, bearing the waves of hurt to keep moving onwards. Agonizing by agonizing minute, the dog crawled, fighting his fate.

Eventually, the spirit started to abandon the creature's ruined carcass. It couldn't move anymore, his front paws sore from the effort of pulling his body's weight all by themselves, and the dog looked over one scruffy shoulder to throw a last betrayed, a last haunted look at the man it had the misfortune of meeting that day in the park, in that arid autumn of blood tinted sunsets.

When Seto Kaiba rose from the dream, the dog had already perished.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **Sooooo, if you liked this fic don't forget to comment. I'm really interested to see what you guys thought about this fic :3 Plus, there may or may not be a sequel in the works hehe.**


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